Curriculum

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List of course subjects with instructors and class size

This document lists the courses for the SATC curriculum at Southwestern, which was designed around general core subjects--such as Mathematics, Physics, English, and History-- as well as classes specific to the military--like Military Law and Practice, Sanitation and Hygiene, and Surveying and Mapmaking. At the same time, the general core was highly applicable to the students' military training. Though not included on this list, the War Issues Course was largely a history course. Math and science were useful for dealing with war machinery and technology. Learning French and German was a valuable skill for American soldiers fighting in the European theater. Similarly, Geology and Geography paired well with Surveying and Mapmaking in dealing with the unfamiliar terrain of European countries. The SATC curriculum was clearly designed to educate the students about a wide-ranging set of subjects that could all be used during their future service in Europe in the Armed Forces.

 

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Letter recommending textbooks for War Issues Course dated Nov. 2, 1918

The focus on Europe in the educational training of the SATC members is strikingly evident in this list of recommended textbooks for the War Issues Course. All the books are either about European history, like "Development of Modern Europe," or about the nature of war, like "The Roots of War." This suggests that the only wars studied in this class were likely European ones, which is unsurprising when considering the program's focus on WWI. The letter was written by R.P. Brooks, who was the District Director (covering Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma) of the War Issues Course. Recently appointed at the time of writing, he speaks of the "considerable" amount of time it will take him to go through all of the work and visit all of the (many) schools for which he is responsible. Here again we see the impressive bureaucratic infrastructure of the SATC at work. However, while the War Issues Course was required of all institutions with an SATC unit, this letter reveals a degree of freedom for the individual professors, who are able to choose one or more of the books on this list. Brooks closes the letter by stating that the Committe for Education and Special Training "hopes that each instructor will leave no stone unturned to present the subject matter of this course in the simplest possible terms" due to the educational inexperience of the unit members. As we shall see in the next section, the academic performance of these students left much to be desired.